CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A small NASA telescope was launched into orbit on Thursday on a mission to determine how the sun heats its atmosphere to millions of degrees, sending off rivers of particles that define the boundaries of the solar system.

The study is far from academic. Solar activity directly impacts Earth's climate and the space environment beyond the planet's atmosphere. Solar storms can knock out power grids, disrupt radio signals and interfere with communications, navigation and other satellites in orbit.

"We live in a very complex society and the sun has a role to play in it," said physicist Alan Title, with Lockheed Martin Space Systems Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, California, which designed and built the telescope.

Scientists have been trying to unravel the mechanisms that drive the sun for decades but one fundamental mystery endures: How it manages to release energy from its relatively cool, 10,000 degree Fahrenheit (5,500 degree Celsius) surface into an atmosphere that can reach up to 5 million degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 million Celsius).

At its core, the sun is essentially a giant fusion engine that melds hydrogen atoms into helium. As expected, temperatures cool as energy travels outward through the layers. But then in the lower atmosphere, known as the chromosphere, temperatures heat up again.

Pictures and data relayed by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, telescope may finally provide some answers about how that happens.

The 4-foot (1.2-meter) long, 450-pound (204-kg) observatory will be watching the sun from a vantage point about 400 miles above Earth. It is designed to capture detailed images of light moving from the sun's surface, known as the photosphere, into the chromosphere. Temperatures peak in the sun's outer atmosphere, the corona.

All that energy fuels a continuous release of charged particles from the sun into what is known as the solar wind, a pressure bubble that fills and defines the boundaries of the solar system.

"Every time we look at the sun in more detail, it opens up a new window for us," said Jeffrey Newmark, IRIS program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The telescope was launched aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp Pegasus rocket at 10:27 p.m. EDT Thursday (0227 GMT Friday). Pegasus is an air-launched system that is carried aloft by a modified L-1011 aircraft that took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California about 57 minutes before launch.

The rocket was released from beneath the belly of the plane at an altitude of about 39,000 feet before it ignited to carry the telescope into orbit.

IRIS, which cost about $145 million including the launch service, is designed to last for two years.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Eric Walsh)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Kentucky's largest public school district has gone smoke free on all campuses.

Jefferson County Public Schools enacted the regulation Monday, barring parents, visitors and employees from lighting up on any school property or in district vehicles.

The Jefferson County Board of Education approved the revision to the district policy, which had prohibited tobacco use or possession on campus or at school functions.

School superintendent Donna Hargens says the new policy will ensure adults will model a tobacco-free lifestyle. Hargens added that the tobacco free policy will mean students aren't exposed to secondhand smoke, a leading trigger of asthma attacks.

President Asif Ali Zardari was in Karachi at the time but was not near the scene of the attack, presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said. The guard who was killed, Bilal Sheikh, provided security at Zardari's private residence in Karachi and also traveled with the president, Babar said.

"He was a sincere and a long-time member of our party, and we are sad over his death," the spokesman said.

The suicide bomber attacked Sheikh's vehicle when he stopped to buy fruit from a market, senior police officer Raja Umar Khatab said. The blast wounded 11 people, Khatab said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Karachi has a long history of violent attacks, both by Islamic militants and criminal gangs, some of which are allegedly connected with the city's main political parties.

The Pakistani Taliban, who are fighting a bloody insurgency against the government, have made significant inroads in the city in recent years. Many of its members fled Pakistan's northwest to escape army operations and U.S. drone attacks.

The Taliban are suspected of killing Zardari's wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in a gun and bomb attack in Pakistan's capital of Islamabad in 2007.

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Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Gartner Inc. said Wednesday that the PC industry is now experiencing the longest decline in its history. The drop comes as people buy fewer PCs and turn to mobile devices such as tablets. Computer makers shipped 76 million PCs in the April-June quarter, down from 85 million in the same period last year.

Lenovo was the No. 1 PC maker, beating out rival Hewlett-Packard Co. by a narrow margin.

Gartner says PC market shipments declined in all regions of the world.

It was unclear whether the move would add to regulations on Internet use imposed by a conservative Islamist leadership wary of secular cultural influences it blames on the West.

President-elect Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate who takes office next month, has called for less state intervention in people's private lives, including less filtering of the Internet and a loosening of media controls.

More than half of the Islamic Republic's 75 million people use the Internet, official figures show. But authorities have tried to limit access with tools including a filter that blocks many websites on the grounds they are offensive or criminal.

State authorities in March blocked software used to get around the filter. Many people said they experienced unusually slow Internet speeds ahead of the June 14 election, a phenomenon critics saw as an apparent attempt to make it harder to organize pro-reform candidate rallies via social media.

Communications Minister Mohammad Hassan Nami did not say whether the national email addresses would be mandatory or how they might affect Iranians' use of their own private addresses. But he said the official addresses must be used for electronic communication with government agencies.

"For mutual interaction and communication between the government and the people, from now on every Iranian will receive a special email address," the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Nami as saying. "With the assignment of an email address to every Iranian, government interactions with the people will take place electronically."

The email addresses, using the "mail.post.ir" domain, will help maintain citizens' privacy, he said. Data centers are to be set up throughout Iran to support the new system.

Officials have also announced plans to switch Iranians onto a domestic Internet network which would be largely isolated from the World Wide Web. Rouhani's view of this move is not known.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Jon Hemming and Mark Heinrich)

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - "House of Cards" star Kate Mara will join Aaron Paul to announce the Emmy nominees July 18 - a sign that Emmy voters are at least acknowledging the existence of Mara's Netflix series.

Whether Netflix will crack the major categories with the political drama is one of the biggest questions this Emmy season.

Being asked to present nominations is of course no guarantee of receiving nominations. But Mara's involvement in the announcement shows that the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is taking a friendly approach to Netflix's challenge to broadcast and cable TV.

Mara, who plays reporter Zoe Barnes on "House of Cards," will present with Paul, a two-time Emmy winner for "Breaking Bad," and Academy Chairman-CEO Bruce Rosenblum. The announcements will come at 8:40 a.m. ET/5:40 a.m. PT.

Spike Jones, Jr. will return as the producers of the program. The nominations will take place at the Television Academy's Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood.

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That's pretty much what the NSA can find through digital tracking, , but the mail surveillance program is even worse from a privacy advocates standpoint because there is zero oversight. "You just fill out a form," Wedick explains. The U.S. Postal Service grants or denies the request without any judicial overview — there's not even a secret court involved. And it's all okay, say courts, because people shouldn't expect privacy for the outside of their mail. Which: sure, anyone can look at the outside of a given envelope. But, is that the same thing as someone rifling through our mail every single day? Apparently. 

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The government has used that argument to justify digital surveillance, notes Nixon. "Officials in both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, in fact, have used the mail-cover court rulings to justify the N.S.A.’s surveillance programs, saying the electronic monitoring amounts to the same thing as a mail cover," he writes. Congress hasn't even talked about the physical mail tracking program since 1976, even with "sporadic" reports of abuse, like opening letters to and from the Soviet Union. The whole thing sounds like a disturbing look at how the current digital surveillance program will look in 40 years: After debate, the program continues, people forget about it and then it's a weird precedent for more tracking.

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Also eerily similar to the current NSA PRISM program, we have no idea how many requests the USPS gets with regards to terrorism:

The criminal activity requests average 15,000 to 20,000 per year, said law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are prohibited by law from discussing the requests. The number of requests for antiterrorism mail covers has not been made public

That sounds a lot like thewho can't say how often the government requests terrorism related intel.

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There is one glimmer of hope, however: At least the snail mail tracking program has led to some successful arrests in Medicare fraud and drug trafficking. .

The 7-foot Italian, who never lived up to expectations in Toronto tweeted "I am thrilled to become a New York Knick and look forward to becoming a part of their storied franchise!!"

According to local media reports the Raptors will receive Steve Novak, Marcus Camby and Quentin Richardson from the Knicks along with New York's first-round pick in the 2016 draft and two second-round selections.

The deal cannot be confirmed until July 10 when the salary cap for next season has been established.

Bargnani averaged 15.2 points and 4.8 rebounds over seven seasons as a Raptor but was a frustrating enigma for Toronto fans, a three-point shooting big man who critics said often appeared disinterested and had little time for defense or doing the hard work under the basket.

(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto, editing by Simon Evans in Miami.)

Michelle Obama will welcome 54 children to the executive mansion on July 9 for creating winning recipes as part of a healthy lunch contest. The youngsters will dine on some of the top dishes at their "state dinner" luncheon and tour the White House vegetable garden. "The X Factor" alum singer Rachel Crow will also perform.

Some of the winning recipes include sushi salad, sweet potato turkey sliders, hidden veggie lasagna, salmon fried rice, garden stir-fry, chicken masala wraps and confetti spring rolls.

More than 1,300 children ages 8 to 12 entered the second Healthy Lunchtime Challenge, which asked them and their parents to create nutritious lunch dishes representing each of the food groups.

The challenge, created by Epicurious.com, supports the first lady's "Let's Move" initiative to address childhood obesity with healthier eating and physical fitness. It is a partnership among Mrs. Obama, the food website and the Education and Agriculture departments.

A free downloadable and printable e-cookbook of the recipes will be available later this month online.

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Online:

http://www.recipechallenge.epicurious.com